Antibiotics

My dog is on a round of antibiotics for a urinary tract infection, and the medication seems to be upsetting her stomach — she doesn't want to eat much, which is very unusual. I know people can take probiotics for this, but are they safe for dogs? What can I do to help her feel better? Antibiotics can certainly cause stomach upset in some animals. The most common side effects are vomiting and/or diarrhea. If she is not eating, be sure to contact your veterinarian, as sometimes infections can worsen even while under treatment with antibiotics.

Science tells us that the overuse of antibiotics is leading to "super bugs," bacteria that are increasingly difficult if not impossible to kill with antibiotics. The biggest users — and arguably abusers — of antibiotics are large-scale industrial farms. More than 70 percent of antibiotics are used on livestock and poultry, and at many facilities, antibiotics are fed to animals that aren't sick. This enables the animals to grow faster and lets them stay healthy despite cramped, confined quarters where bacteria abound.

Researchers who examined feather remnants of slaughtered chickens have found that antibiotics banned by federal regulators may still be used in poultry production. The researchers from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and Arizona State University looked for drug and other residue in the feather meal. The findings included amounts of fluoroquinolones, a spectrum of antibiotics used to treat serious bacterial infections in people, including infections that have become resistant to older antibiotic classes.

Antibiotics have saved countless lives over the years, but their overuse has lead to problems including antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Dr. Mary R. Clance, an epidemiologist at Anne Arundel Medical Center, discusses the history, troubles and appropriate uses of the drugs. How have antibiotics contributed to public health since their discovery and what is their status now? The collective memory of death from infectious disease is short-lived. Death from pneumonia, puerperal fever, post-operative infection, urinary and skin infections were commonplace just two generations ago. Pneumonia was the leading cause of death at the beginning of the 20th century.

Antibiotics have saved countless lives over the years, but their overuse has lead to problems including antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Dr. Mary R. Clance, an epidemiologist at Anne Arundel Medical Center, discusses the history, troubles and appropriate uses of the drugs. How have antibiotics contributed to public health since their discovery and what is their status now? The collective memory of death from infectious disease is short-lived. Death from pneumonia, puerperal fever, post-operative infection, urinary and skin infections were commonplace just two generations ago. Pneumonia was the leading cause of death at the beginning of the 20th century.

The rise of drug-resistant bacteria is one of the more alarming health threats of the past several decades. Some of the nation's top hospitals, including one operated by the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, have experienced deadly outbreaks. Altogether, such infections kill an estimated 23,000 Americans each year, which is more than die of leukemia, Parkinson's disease or HIV/AIDS, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One factor thought to be contributing to the deadly trend is the use of antibiotics in farm animals.

Science tells us that the overuse of antibiotics is leading to "super bugs," bacteria that are increasingly difficult if not impossible to kill with antibiotics. The biggest users — and arguably abusers — of antibiotics are large-scale industrial farms. More than 70 percent of antibiotics are used on livestock and poultry, and at many facilities, antibiotics are fed to animals that aren't sick. This enables the animals to grow faster and lets them stay healthy despite cramped, confined quarters where bacteria abound.

Researchers report that they have found evidence of banned antibiotics in poultry byproducts, suggesting that growers are evading a 2005 prohibition on their use in treating chickens and turkeys. Scientists at Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health and at Arizona State University detected fluoroquinolones, broad-spectrum antibiotics used to treat bacterial infections in people, as well as otherover-the-counter drugs and residues in feather meal, a common additive to chicken, swine, cattle and fish feed. The Food and Drug Administration banned the use of fluoroquinolones in poultry production in 2005 amid concern about the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. But in a study published in Environmental Science & Technology , the two schools' researchers report they found the banned drugs in 8 of 12 samples of feather meal collected from six states and China.

WASHINGTON - In the typical chicken house on the Eastern Shore, tens of thousands of cramped and clucking fowl munch on antibiotics that should be used to cure human illness, not prod chickens to fatten faster. Until recently, there was a storehouse of antibiotics that could handily fight even the nastiest of infectious diseases. But the overuse of these miracle drugs - in hospitals, consumer products, veterinary clinics, cattle feedlots and hog and chicken factories - is resulting in the spread of super bugs doctors may be unable to cure.

On March 13th you published a letter written by reader Lois Raimondi Munchel titled "Stop the spread of deadly bacteria in nursing homes. " The letter was timely. It should send alarm bells ringing not only through the hallways of our nursing homes but also through our hospitals and our operating rooms. Not too long ago, at the NIH hospital, deadly Klebseilla bacteria resistant to all antibiotics, were found. Fifty percent of patients with this bacterial infection will die. These lethal, resistant bacteria have appeared in hospitals up and down the East Coast.

Extra attention to hygiene means fewer germs are infecting people in health care settings these days, but particularly hardy bacteria called Clostridium difficile are defying the trend - and even gaining in strength. Patients endure round after round of antibiotics to knock out the bug, known as C. diff., which causes abdominal pain, extreme diarrhea and potentially fatal inflammation of the colon. Increasingly, however, doctors are turning to a cure that may seem every bit as yucky as the problem.

My dog is on a round of antibiotics for a urinary tract infection, and the medication seems to be upsetting her stomach — she doesn't want to eat much, which is very unusual. I know people can take probiotics for this, but are they safe for dogs? What can I do to help her feel better? Antibiotics can certainly cause stomach upset in some animals. The most common side effects are vomiting and/or diarrhea. If she is not eating, be sure to contact your veterinarian, as sometimes infections can worsen even while under treatment with antibiotics.

The rise of drug-resistant bacteria is one of the more alarming health threats of the past several decades. Some of the nation's top hospitals, including one operated by the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, have experienced deadly outbreaks. Altogether, such infections kill an estimated 23,000 Americans each year, which is more than die of leukemia, Parkinson's disease or HIV/AIDS, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One factor thought to be contributing to the deadly trend is the use of antibiotics in farm animals.

On March 13th you published a letter written by reader Lois Raimondi Munchel titled "Stop the spread of deadly bacteria in nursing homes. " The letter was timely. It should send alarm bells ringing not only through the hallways of our nursing homes but also through our hospitals and our operating rooms. Not too long ago, at the NIH hospital, deadly Klebseilla bacteria resistant to all antibiotics, were found. Fifty percent of patients with this bacterial infection will die. These lethal, resistant bacteria have appeared in hospitals up and down the East Coast.

In 2011, I spent six months in hospitals and nursing homes recovering from a bacterial infection called C-Difficile that I caught after surgery ("Nightmare bacteria," March 8). It is easily passed from patient to patient. While in the nursing homes I noticed a lack of the kind of proper care that would have prevented this potentially fatal illness. When I was admitted, not only was I placed in a semi-private room, exposing the other patient, I was given a remote control that had dried feces and blood on it. I reported it, but I'm sure this kind of thing happens constantly.

Hospitals aren't the only places where people can pick up a nasty "superbug. " A University of Maryland -led team of researchers has found methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus , or MRSA, at sewage treatment plants in the mid-Atlantic and the Midwest. MRSA is a well-known problem in hospitals, where patients have picked up potentially fatal bacterial infections that do not respond to antibiotic treatment. But since the late 1990s, it's also been showing up in otherwise healthy people outside of health-care facilities, prompting a search for sources in the wider community.

Q: My daughter has had three episodes of bronchitis this year which didn't seem to respond to antibiotics. She usually starts with a cold and then it settles into her chest with a cough and chest tightness. Why don't antibiotics help her? Could she be immune to them?A: We suspect your daughter is probably quite all right although we don't have all the information necessary to reassure you completely. As a first step, let us try to define precisely the word bronchitis, which means different things to different people.

The Food and Drug Administration says it will test raw milk weekly around the nation to determine if it contains certain antibiotics.The agency said yesterday 250 locations across the country will be chosen for testing, and raw milk samples will be collected each week from five of these sites, selected randomly.The samples will be tested for the presence of eight sulfa drugs and three tetracycline drugs. The FDA said that when residues are found, the states will be told and the agency will help track down the source.

Researchers who examined feather remnants of slaughtered chickens have found that antibiotics banned by federal regulators may still be used in poultry production. The researchers from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and Arizona State University looked for drug and other residue in the feather meal. The findings included amounts of fluoroquinolones, a spectrum of antibiotics used to treat serious bacterial infections in people, including infections that have become resistant to older antibiotic classes.

Researchers report that they have found evidence of banned antibiotics in poultry byproducts, suggesting that growers are evading a 2005 prohibition on their use in treating chickens and turkeys. Scientists at Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health and at Arizona State University detected fluoroquinolones, broad-spectrum antibiotics used to treat bacterial infections in people, as well as otherover-the-counter drugs and residues in feather meal, a common additive to chicken, swine, cattle and fish feed. The Food and Drug Administration banned the use of fluoroquinolones in poultry production in 2005 amid concern about the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. But in a study published in Environmental Science & Technology , the two schools' researchers report they found the banned drugs in 8 of 12 samples of feather meal collected from six states and China.